Kabbalah Laam
 |
|
| Formation | early 1990s |
|---|---|
| Founder | Michael Laitman |
| Type | Kabbalah |
| Headquarters |
Petach Tikva, Israel |
| Website | www |
Bnei Baruch (also known as Kabbalah Laam, Hebrew: קבלה לעם) is an universalist kabbalah association founded by Michael Laitman in the early 1990s. It is estimated to have around 50,000 followers in Israel, and some 150,000 around the world.
Bnei Baruch is the largest among several groups teaching Kabbalah in the tradition of the Ashlag dynasty. Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag emigrated from Poland to Israel in 1921, having correctly predicted that those Jews who would remain in Poland would perish. He wrote a well-known commentary on the Zohar called the Sulam (Ladder), and came to be known as Baal HaSulam, "Author of the Ladder." He became very popular in Israel, and was consulted on Kabbalah by the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, David Ben Gurion. Relying on his claim that the statement “Love thy friend as thyself” summarizes the essence of Kabbalah, Yehuda Ashlag proposed a theory of "altruistic communism," a form of socialism based on principles of altruism and different from Soviet-style, materialistic communism, which he harshly criticized. He also "hinted" at the universalistic idea of teaching Kabbalah to non-Jews, although this theme was fully developed only by his successors.
Yehuda Ashlag passed away on Yom Kippur Day in 1954. After his death, his disciples divided. Some followed one of his associates, Yehuda Tzvi Brandwein (1904-1969), who had become Ashlag’s brother-in-law through his second marriage. Brandwein's group is, directly or indirectly, at the origins of several contemporary Ashlagian Kabbalah movements, including the Kabbalah Centre of Philip Berg. Other disciples of Yehuda Ashlag accepted the leadership of two of his four sons: Bejamin Shlomo Ashlag (1907-1991), whose group remained comparatively small, and Baruch Ashlag.
In order to fight an attempt by his brother, Benjamin Shlomo Ashlag, to assert sole copyright on their father’s work in British courts, Baruch Shalom Ashlag, known as Rabash, moved for a while to England and returned to Israel only after the trial had ended in his favor. Upon his return to Israel, Rabash started teaching a group of disciples in Bnei Brak, mostly former students of his father, emphasizing the importance of “work in the group,” i.e. the cultivation of brotherly love among students, a principle described in detail in his writings. Baruch Ashlag died in 1991 and, in turn, his disciples divided into various groups. Although Bnei Brak is a center of ultra-orthodoxy (Haredi Judaism), not all disciples of Baruch Ashlag were originally ultra-orthodox. Most of the disciples of Baruch Ashlag who were not ultra-orthodox had been brought to him by Michael Laitman, whom the Haredi newspaper HaModia called in 1991 “the trusted person of Rabash’ house,” recognizing in him one of the closest disciples of the master. By accepting these students, Baruch Ashlag paved a new path in the Kabbalistic tradition, which was hitherto perceived as forbidden to the non-orthodox world.
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Wikipedia